Why eco-friendly can be profit-friendly: the benefits of green packaging in ecommerce

Con­sumers are becom­ing increas­ing­ly eco-con­scious, and see pack­ag­ing as a yard­stick for sus­tain­abil­i­ty, which will influ­ence their buy­ing habits and their brand loy­al­ty. For ecom­merce brands in par­tic­u­lar, giv­en that receipt of a pack­age through the post can be a customer’s first expe­ri­ence of a brand, green pack­ag­ing has become a cru­cial part of the online retail strat­e­gy.

Accord­ing to research by Triv­i­um Pack­ag­ing, near­ly three-quar­ters (74%) of con­sumers are will­ing to pay more for sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing, and of those, almost a quar­ter are will­ing to pay for an increased cost of 10% or more. The report also found that almost 60% of con­sumers say they are less like­ly to buy a prod­uct in harm­ful pack­ag­ing. 

As a result, sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing is becom­ing a key dif­fer­en­tia­tor in the val­ue propo­si­tion of ecom­merce-focused brands, the tra­di­tion­al hall­marks of qual­i­ty being replaced by prac­ti­cal­i­ty and a sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced car­bon foot­print. Garçon Wines, for exam­ple, broke with tra­di­tion and the gold­en rule of ‘qual­i­ty’ wine bot­tles by devel­op­ing a flat recy­cled and, cru­cial­ly, unbreak­able plas­tic bot­tle that fits through a customer’s let­ter­box, clear­ly demon­strat­ing the brand’s val­ues and enhanc­ing the con­sumer expe­ri­ence. In turn, this dri­ves an imme­di­ate pos­i­tive asso­ci­a­tion with the brand and builds long-term loy­al­ty, as con­sumers look to sup­port brands that reflect their own val­ues and vision for a bet­ter future.

Spencer Buck, founder and chief cre­ative offi­cer at brand design agency Taxi Stu­dio, agrees that green pack­ag­ing cre­den­tials are play­ing a big­ger role in help­ing ecom­merce brands to win and keep new cus­tomers. He says: “From per­son­al expe­ri­ence, I was con­vinced to pur­chase a pair of shorts from out­door cloth­ing retail­er Fin­is­terre after read­ing up on their impres­sive sus­tain­able cre­den­tials. The plas­tic bags they use are made from an inno­v­a­tive poly­mer mate­r­i­al that dis­solves in water, is non-tox­ic and marine safe.”

Educating consumers about packaging strategies

Yet, there is a com­pet­i­tive ten­sion fac­ing ecom­merce brands as they try to achieve that bal­ance between sus­tain­abil­i­ty, brand image and cus­tomer affin­i­ty and loy­al­ty to that brand. Tra­di­tion­al­ly the chal­lenges have been func­tion­al­i­ty ver­sus price, but ecom­merce brands are at an advan­tage, as Mariel­la Mena­to, strat­e­gy direc­tor at glob­al design firm Denom­i­na­tion explains.

“Pro­vid­ing a sat­is­fac­to­ry con­sumer expe­ri­ence requires high­er invest­ment, so it’s impor­tant to use your e‑commerce plat­form, includ­ing social media, to intro­duce con­sumers to sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing as part of the brand expe­ri­ence,” she says. “Edu­cat­ing them on the envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits rein­forces the brand’s val­ues and the inher­ent val­ue of the pack as a dri­ver of pos­i­tive impact.”

Some online brands have suc­ceed­ed in strik­ing a good bal­ance. Last Decem­ber, craft beer brand Brew­good­er, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with char­i­ty Social Bite, trans­formed their out­er deliv­ery box­es into food bank dona­tion packs, cre­at­ing a sec­ondary use for this recy­clable pack­ag­ing and mak­ing its use pur­pose­ful. At the same time it empow­ered con­sumers, while rein­forc­ing the brand’s over­all posi­tion­ing as a beer for good.

“Seed Syn­bi­otics is anoth­er good exam­ple,” says Mena­to. “As an exten­sion of its brand mis­sion, ‘health sus­tain­abil­i­ty is key: the health of our planet’s ecosys­tems is as impor­tant as our inter­nal ecosys­tems’, every aspect of their pack­ag­ing is either reusable or com­postable. Both beau­ti­ful and inno­v­a­tive, the refills arrive in a plas­tic alter­na­tive that com­plete­ly dis­solves in the kitchen sink.”

Striking a balance  

While there is clear cus­tomer demand for prod­uct pack­ag­ing that is sus­tain­able, in sec­tors where the look and design of the lat­est ‘must have’ items are cru­cial, aes­thet­ics can become the pri­or­i­ty. At online mobile acces­sories firm Juice Glob­al, their pack­ag­ing strat­e­gy is to pro­vide clear con­sumer mes­sag­ing, while ensur­ing that prod­ucts are eye-catch­ing, with a fun look and feel, and ‘pop’ off the vir­tu­al shelf.

Gen­er­al man­ag­er Steph Cot­ter­ill says: “It’s a very fine line, but we feel that the design of the pack­ag­ing needs to come first and then the con­sumers find out that the prod­uct is, in fact, sus­tain­able, rather than mak­ing this the key mes­sage. We need to ensure that our prod­ucts con­tin­ue to reflect our brand image and our val­ues. how­ev­er, if your pack­ag­ing is not envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly then essen­tial­ly, you are going back­ward.”

When it comes to sus­tain­abil­i­ty, con­sumer val­ues are increas­ing­ly trans­lat­ing to their pur­chas­ing actions, and they are will­ing to pay to pro­tect the envi­ron­ment. This presents brands with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to influ­ence those pur­chas­ing deci­sions by offer­ing the sus­tain­able options that cus­tomers demand. Busi­ness­es that are not adding val­ue to the sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­ver­sa­tion will find it increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to com­pete with those that are.

Authenticity is key

Above all, com­pa­nies need to be authen­tic in their pur­suit of sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing cre­den­tials, rather than sim­ply slap­ping a ‘green’ label on it. Con­sumers are doing more research and are bet­ter informed about the lat­est devel­op­ments in this area, and a back­lash to green­wash­ing attempts can inflict sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to a brand. 

Glob­al research coor­di­nat­ed by the Com­pe­ti­tion and Mar­kets Author­i­ty (CMA) found that as much as 40% of firms’ green claims could be mis­lead­ing. Ear­li­er this year the CMA pub­lished the Green Claims Code to pro­vide guid­ance for com­pa­nies to ensure that their on-pack­age envi­ron­men­tal mes­sag­ing com­plies with con­sumer laws. The aim is to help increas­ing­ly eco-con­scious con­sumers make more informed deci­sions when they’re buy­ing prod­ucts and avoid any mis­lead­ing claims.

The new guide­lines also cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for brands to edu­cate con­sumers about the gen­uine eco-cre­den­tials of pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als such as plas­tic, which can help com­pa­nies to enhance their sus­tain­abil­i­ty cre­den­tials, and here, ecom­merce brands have an advan­tage. Oper­at­ing in the dig­i­tal space, they are free of the lim­i­ta­tions imposed on prod­uct pack­ag­ing on the shelves of a phys­i­cal retail store and can build entire plat­forms to inform, edu­cate, cam­paign, and tell their own sus­tain­abil­i­ty sto­ry, with the greater oppor­tu­ni­ties this brings to be the brand of choice.